The purpose of the Analytical Glycotechnology Core is to provide the technical expertise and instrumentation necessary to structurally characterize sialic acids,N- and O-linked oligosaccharides or glycosaminoglycans isolated from either proteins, cells or tissues from transgenic animals provided by the Project Leaders' laboratories. The Core will greatly benefit from access to the instruments, reagents and expertise in the existing Glycotechnology Resource Core of the UCSD Glycobiology Research and Training Center (GRTC). Many of the techniques to be employed for these analyses (lipid extraction, isolation of glycans, monosaccharide analysis, methylation linkage analysis, glycosaminoglycan disaccharide analysis) were devised or implemented during the previous funding period. Others have only recently become available as the GRTC Core has added new, state-of-the-art equipment geared toward improving sensitivity. These upgrades include a nanospray source for the existing LC-Q mass spectrometer, a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, a high sensitivity fluorescence detector, and a new nanoprobe for the NMR. The availability of high quality instrumentation, coupled with the many combined years of analytical glycobiology experience represented by the members of the GRTC Glycotechnology Resource, allow us to meet the analytical challenges posed the Project Leaders and perform the analyses necessary to support their research aims.